For the life of me I just can't do it. I can present physically more fem, but it's a passive type of thing. Vocally you are performing - I can't bring myself to go the upper range.

It's like I'm TRYING to fake it and feels like I'm insulting people intelligence.

Around others who didn't know me, yes. But friends? Family? Ugh!

I am really finding it hard to care about my voice at all. It is an odd approach, I know... and sometimes I am met with responses like, "Woah! You're a dude?!?"

It puts my friends and family at ease as they get to know the new me, and many insist my voice HAS changed, but I refuse to force things. Not right now. And yet, I am starting to male fail on occasion so, go figure.

I am just reaching that "I don't give a f***." point, and it is pretty darn nice.

To each their own though. I can certainly respect using your natural voice around people who know you.

Perhaps with time, a new voice will feel natural. Until then, why feel like someone you aren't around people who know better? If it feels wrong to you, it will likely feel wrong to them.

I find it hard to use a more feminine voice around people I already know even though they already know about me, I just find it really awkward at the moment and it kind of feels a bit unnatural for me. My voice isn't that masculine but it's not that feminine either. I should probably practice it more. >.>

I feel the same way. It's easy to do when I'm singing in the car or practicing my spiel for a meeting but as soon as I'm around non-trans friends and off script I catch myself slipping into a comfort zone that is no longer mentally comfortable.

I'm not sure if it's that I recognize my friends and family and immediately go on the old scripts for my voice or if it just makes me feel weird and so I drop back into the deeper voice.

I put forth better effort today though trying to break those habits and start new ones. It takes practice but it's certainly possible. I once practiced a Strong Bad impression for so long my voice got stuck that way for a while. Let me tell you once that joke is dead it's just awkward trying to have dinner with your girl friend.

Quote from: Tori on August 08, 2014, 09:16:55 PM
I am really finding it hard to care about my voice at all. It is an odd approach, I know... and sometimes I am met with responses like, "Woah! You're a dude?!?"

It puts my friends and family at ease as they get to know the new me, and many insist my voice HAS changed, but I refuse to force things. Not right now. And yet, I am starting to male fail on occasion so, go figure.

I am just reaching that "I don't give a f***." point, and it is pretty darn nice.

To each their own though. I can certainly respect using your natural voice around people who know you.

Perhaps with time, a new voice will feel natural. Until then, why feel like someone you aren't around people who know better? If it feels wrong to you, it will likely feel wrong to them.

4 years in and I still don't care.. OK, I don't have the most manly voice in the world, but it's manly enough.

I have trouble even using my female voice to friends online.

However when no one is watching I can easily record my voice and upload it here..I have major stage fright. 

It comes in time. I had this same problem for awhile even after I achieved my female voice. You just have to keep at it. Getting over feeling super awkward is really tough. What got me over that hurdle was just pushing on through honestly.

Friends?

Can't comment on that since I had two and they both ditched me.

Family?

I just went with it and worked on it, no matter what anyone thought about it. Made some pretty goofy errors. I remember one time my brother said: "You sound like a little girl". Oh, well. It was just part of the process. Once I got a decent voice my dad would complain that "you sound like your mom. Stop it."  But once my tonsils became infected, it set me back a few steps. Once they were removed, that helped a LOT.

Trying to hit the "C" note from the lessons but I just end up sounding like Dr. Girlfriend from the Venture bro.


Going to keep at it! My friends online keep telling me that I am getting better.

Some like the deep voice. 

I once had a trans friend ask me how I had trained my voice to be so perfectly female. I confessed to her that it has always been this way since birth. It was simply unaffected by my very mild puberty. She looked like she wanted to kill me.

I thought I would but I didn't. I don't really pitch my voice higher, more that I give it a softer/lighter lilt, if that makes any sense. It still sounds like me to those who knew dude-me but is apparently convincing enough for those who didn't to accept it as a sultry female voice. I don't feel or look like dude-me when I present as Grace so there's no way I can feel comfortable using the dude-me voice

The thing for me it's just not that important. I try my best like Ms. Grace softer and lighter and maybe an octave higher . Just trying to be more natural flowing. I don't try much with my therapist , but once in a while I get the urge.

I did at the very beginning, but over time it started to feel more and more natural. Now it's just my voice... I forget how to do the old one, and it's *that* that takes conscious effort.

Quote from: Jenna Marie on August 09, 2014, 08:38:00 PM
I did at the very beginning, but over time it started to feel more and more natural. Now it's just my voice... I forget how to do the old one, and it's *that* that takes conscious effort.

This ^^

OMG the voice! this was the one area where I knew what I was doing was for real! I just couldn't bare to do it! I felt like I would have to be a fake all my life. Well it just happened! I don't even know when or how! I practiced very little but just found an area in my throat that was comfortable.

When I first came out to my children 4 years ago, even though I looked the same and sounded the same as I did the last year and a half or so.  When it became official my children now questioned if I would be gendered female because of how I sounded and my appearance . Even though I was being gendered female for the last year and a half, and many times with them, he still didn't see it. I then told him that my voice had changed, even though he may not have noticed it, He said "no way" . Well one day we were in the car before going into Target and  I was talking about how things will go in the future, he again mentioned my voice, I again told him that it had changed, I then proceeded to cough a little and talked with my old voice......his reaction was as shocking as mine was!! He could not believe how I sounded now. He said wow, your voice is different.....I said yes, it is....and I don't ever ask me to do that again! it freaked even myself out!!

I have been ft for almost 4 years and I have not been gendered male for the last 5 -6 years, not even on the phone, which was one of the first areas I was being gendered female.....to my surprise. It was really awkward when trying to change things over to my new name over the phone, even more difficult in person

Have you gals noticed it's much harder to maintain that higher pitch when speaking in crowds or when you need to really speak up?

I find it's much easier to maintain my upper register in quieter settings.

Evelyn : That, too, takes practice, I think. For me personally, it felt like literally training my voice - like the more work I did with it, the stronger it got. I had training as an actor in projecting, though, so that probably helped. I can now even scream instructions in a higher pitch, although it isn't particularly my "best voice." (I'm also lucky enough that my natural vocal range is from mid-tenor to low alto, so I'm basically striving to hold "head voice" and end up in a feminine pitch.) I didn't really get good at speaking loudly until I was doing the female voice 24/7 for like a year.

And yes, even so, I don't have quite the projection or power I did before. Oh well.

I can strangely sing in soprano, but managing a believable speaking voice is definitely tough. My voice isn't all that deep unless I make it that way, but it's certainly not even close to a lower register cis woman's. I'll get it there, though, but it's hard to practice when someone is always around to hear you.

Quote from: Evelyn K on August 08, 2014, 08:38:49 PM
It's like I'm TRYING to fake it and feels like I'm insulting people intelligence.

Around others who didn't know me, yes. But friends? Family? Ugh!

The whole reason I chose to do vfs. I know exactly how you feel. Even after vfs, my voice still goes lower than it normally is around family. It's some kind of inescapable pitch-suck mechanism. What the heck is up with that, I wanna know too.

I can yell and raise my voice in a loud environment with ease now. But I was only able to do that cause of my constant practice after years of training it. Like Jenna said it comes in time.

Quote from: Jennygirl on August 10, 2014, 06:48:09 AM
The whole reason I chose to do vfs. I know exactly how you feel. Even after vfs, my voice still goes lower than it normally is around family. It's some kind of inescapable pitch-suck mechanism. What the heck is up with that, I wanna know too.

^^ This. And it feels like you have a frog at the bottom of your throat.

My guess is your use of your native voice in your growing up experiences is so engrained in your memories and psyche that it just overpowers your will to speak 'unnaturally' higher around them.